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Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO determined whether the Commission on Alternative Utilization of Military Facilities and the Department of Defense (DOD) adequately considered military property for conversion to minimum security prisons as an alternative to new prison construction.

GAO found that: (1) as of September 1990, the Commission had not identified any DOD property for conversion to prison use, but the Commission had not completed its review of properties; (2) because the executive order governing the program did not specify that DOD report bases subject to closure to the Commission, DOD excluded them and failed to report some excess military property to the Commission; (3) the Commission's internal control weaknesses for receipt and review of documents resulted in its failure to review 41 percent of DOD-reported properties; (4) the 2,958 properties that the Commission did review may have had inaccurate and inconsistent property descriptions; (5) the Commission judged most of the reviewed properties as not suitable for prison use; and (6) the Commission's enabling legislation did not address such significant correctional needs as the federal government's need for higher security prisons, and state and local governments' needs for additional prison space.

Matter for Congressional Consideration

Status: Closed - Implemented

Comments: Congress amended enabling legislation in line with the recommendation.

Matter: Congress should consider adopting the provisions of S. 2884, by amending the Commission's enabling legislation to: (1) eliminate the limitation to minimum security prisons, thus encouraging the Commission to consider property for higher security prisons; and (2) make explicit the consideration of state and local government prison needs when military property is reviewed.

Recommendations for Executive Action

Status: Closed - Implemented

Comments: DOD instituted procedures to ensure it receives all surveys and distributes them to the reviewing agencies.

Recommendation: The Commission on Alternative Utilization of Military Facilities should establish controls to ensure that it receives and reviews all property survey forms completed by the services.

Agency Affected: Commission on Alternative Utilization of Military Facilities

Status: Closed - Implemented

Comments: DOD has agreed to report to the Commission excess property that has been reported to GSA or is classified civilian. In November 1991, DOD instructed the services to report excess property that had been reported to GSA or is classified civilian.

Recommendation: The Secretary of Defense should instruct the: (1) services to report to the Commission the excess property that has been reported to the General Services Administration (GSA); and (2) Army to report to the Commission its civilian property.

Agency Affected: Department of Defense

Status: Closed - Implemented

Comments: In November 1991, DOD instructed the services to report base closures to the Commission for review for the January 1992 report.

Recommendation: The Secretary of Defense should require that bases subject to closure be reported to the Commission as soon as a final decision on closure status has been made.

Agency Affected: Department of Defense

Status: Closed - Implemented

Comments: DOD revised the survey form and instructions to eliminate weaknesses GAO identified.

Recommendation: The Commission on Alternative Utilization of Military Facilities should take steps to improve the property survey form to increase the likelihood of obtaining consistent and meaningful data. Actions to improve the property survey form would include redesigning it to eliminate ambiguous and open-ended questions, tailoring it to identify property for prison use, and pretesting it to identify and correct any other problems.

Agency Affected: Commission on Alternative Utilization of Military Facilities